1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a genomic RNA of papaya leaf-distortion mosaic virus (hereinafter referred to as "PLDMV"), a DNA complementary to the RNA and a method for creating a plant resistant to PLDMV comprising incorporating the above DNA into the genomic DNA of a plant.
2. Prior Art
In papaya growing in the subtropical region of Japan, there occurs a disease called papaya leaf-distortion mosaic wherein leaves bear mosaic symptoms and fruit bears ring spots, and this disease has become a problem. It has been proved that this disease is caused by the infection of PLDMV. In virus classification, PLDMV belongs to the same group as potato virus Y belongs to (the Potyvirus group). It has a flexuous rod shape and a length of about 800 nm. This virus is non-persistently transmitted by aphids. The constituent elements of this virus comprises RNA as the entity of genes and a coat protein surrounding the RNA. The genomic RNA of this virus includes a region which codes for the coat protein.
There has been no finding about this region of the PLDMV genomic RNA nor any report of the base sequence of this region.
Tennant et al. have reported that by introducing into a plant the coat protein gene of the P strain of papaya ring spot virus (PRSV-P), it is possible to render the plant a resistance to PRSV-P Tennant et al., Phytopathology 84:1359-1366 (1994)!. Accordingly, it is expected that a PLDMV resistant plant could also be created by introducing the coat protein gene of this virus into a plant.